Author Michael Scott once wrote, “The day we stop learning is the day we die.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Whether you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the president of a Ivy League College, a successful entrepreneur, or even just a great mom, there’s always room for improvement.
Perhaps it’s learning a new skill (cooking is mine), testing new marketing ideas, knowing how to negotiate better deals, or simply finding ways to get better use of our time. There’s always something.
Back in 2009 when I wrote iSucceed: Secrets for the Average Joe and Jane I felt I had done what I set out to do.
However, I did make quite a few mistakes.
One big one was my title. I still like it, but I realize now that I should have created it for a niche rather than trying to appeal to the masses.
Another was not taking the time to study marketing beforehand.
I also failed to create a framework from which to work with, which is why I’m writing this article.
When it comes to success secrets, one of the things I’ve realized is the importance of frameworks.
Tony Robbins has his 6 basic human needs, Jim Rohn had his 5 pieces to the life puzzle, Steven Covey had 7 habits and Napoleon Hill had 17 laws so I sat down and rethought my entire belief about success and living the good life. I reread iSucceed, went over my notes from all the books I’ve read on the topic of personal development as well as marketing and looked at all the other frameworks out there and realized that rather than talk about 10 different components that I could simplify things further.
And that’s when I came up with my 4 pillars: personal development, marketing, finance and time management.
Now I know for some “personal development” isn’t what they want to hear when it comes to success but even Dan Kennedy, one of the top marketers in the world, admits that personal development is 70% of the game. Jim Rohn put it another way saying, “Income seldom exceeds personal development.” He went on to say, “If someone hands you a million dollars, you’d better quickly become a millionaire or sure enough, soon it’ll be gone.”
However, as another mentor pointed out, personal development is a tough sell. For the most part people want to know one of four things:
- How to lose weight
- How to make money
- How to be more beautiful
- How to get more… (fill in the blank)
People are always looking for strategies or techniques they can apply to their businesses or relationships that will get the results they want. In other words, they want something, when the real secret to success in any field is us.
I’ve always been relatively slender so I haven’t had much trouble with my weight, but recently I’m getting older and thanks to my wife’s fantastic cooking realize that I have to keep an eye on it. To battle the effects of aging I’ve implemented a heavy dose of yoga, karate and swimming which should keep me looking young for years.
As for hairstyles and fashion I’m pretty useless, but have my lovely wife to help me out there. So I can’t help people much with those two areas.
However, I have spent an awful lot of time studying how to make money and have made investments that will (fingers crossed) pay off very nicely in the years to come. I may not be a millionaire yet, but I spent most of my time studying their investment strategies and have a few friends who have gone on to be very successful financially so I do my best to share that knowledge with you here.
Time management is pretty much the same thing as time organization, but either way it’s something most people struggle to get a grip of in today’s high speed world. The best thing about learning how to get more out of the time you have is it allows you to focus more on the other three pillars.
Marketing and finance are focused on how to make more money. Personal development is all about making sure we are emotionally strong enough and have the right foundation to handle success and then time management helps make life easier.
To me, no one framework has all the answers,but each addresses certain issues that helps us get make sense of this crazy world we live in.
I designed the 4 Pillars to be short and sweet, but make no mistake, they pack a punch.
Adrian Shepherd